The following theses have been submitted to the Faculty of Science Graduate Office and are available for review by any member of the University during the display period only. The display period is the time between the posting of the thesis and 5 business days prior to the examination date. Thesis defences at the University of Waterloo are also open to the campus community.
Winter 2025 PhD defenses
Wednesday, January 8, 2025 at 9:00:00 AM
PhD Candidate: Michelle MCKNIGHT
Title: Microbial ecology of nitrification in engineered water treatment systems
Supervisor: Josh Neufeld
Department: Biology
Location/Method: B1 266 and Remote via MS TEAMS
Friday, February 7, 2025 at 1:00:00 PM
PhD Candidate: Muzi LI
Title: A Multi-Phase Analysis of Gas Dynamics and Perturbations in the Galaxy Cluster Cores
Supervisor: Brian McNamara
Department: Physics and Astronomy
Location/Method: PHY 352 and Remote via MS TEAMS
Thursday, February 13, 2025 at 10:00:00 AM
PhD Candidate: Jin WANG
Title: Harnessing Exosomes from Human Dermal Fibroblasts and Pirfenidone-exosomes as Innovative Strategies for Scarless Tissue Repair in Wound Healing
Supervisor: Emmanuel Ho
Department: School of Pharmacy
Location/Method: Remote via MS TEAMS
Thursday, February 27, 2025 at 1:00:00 PM
PhD Candidate: Karsten RINAS
Title: Comparative Effect of Herceptin and Its Biosimilar: Transcriptomic and Proteomic Insights from HER2-Positive Cancer Cell Lines
Supervisor: Brendan McConkey
Department: Biology
Location/Method: B1 266 and Remote via MS TEAMS
Wednesday, March 19, 2025 at 8:30:00 AM
PhD Candidate: Piyush GARG
Title: Development of a biodegradable contact lens system for ocular drug delivery
Supervisor: Lyndon Jones and Chau-Minh Phan
Department: School of Optometry and Vision Science
Location/Method: Remote via MS TEAMS
Friday April 4, 2025 at 10:00:00 AM
PhD Candidate: Carson KINNEY
Title: Heat Production and Transfer in Earthโs Continental Crust
Supervisor: Chris Yakymchuk
Department: Earth and Environmental Sciences
Location/Method: EIT 2053 and Remote via MS TEAMS
Tuesday, April 8, 2025 at 8:00:00 AM
PhD Candidate: Joanne FERNANDEZ
Title: Grafting of Starch Nanoparticles with Polymers
Supervisor: Mario Gauthier
Department: Chemistry
Location/Method: C2 371 and Remote via MS TEAMS
Tuesday, April 15, 2025 at 8:30:00 AM
PhD Candidate: Asiya JABEEN
Title: Short-Term Effect of Diffusion Optics Technologyแตแดน (DOT) Contrast Management Spectacle Lenses on Ocular Biometrics and Lag of Accommodation in Emmetropic Children
Supervisor: Lyndon Jones
Department: School of Optometry and Vision Science
Location/Method: Remote via MS TEAMS
Wednesday, April 16, 2025 at 9:00:00 AM
PhD Candidate: Laura NEARY
Title: Development and application of aquatic ecosystem monitoring approaches for the Peace-Athabasca Delta and Whooping Crane Nesting Region of Wood Buffalo National Park
Supervisor: Roland Hall and Brent Wolfe
Department: Biology
Location/Method: B1 266 and Remote via MS TEAMS
Wednesday, May 7, 2025 at 1:00:00 PM
PhD Candidate: Louis PFEIFER
Title: The impact of wastewater effluent and enantiomers of venlafaxine on darters (๐๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ๐ฐ๐ด๐ต๐ฐ๐ฎ๐ข spp.) in the Grand River
Supervisor: Paul Craig
Department: Biology
Location/Method: B1 266 and Remote via MS TEAMS
Winter 2025 MSc defences
Monday, January 6, 2025 at 11:00:00 AM
MSc Candidate: Parisa AHMADI
Title: Comparing different delivery systems in site-specific genome editing in ๐๐ฉ๐ญ๐ฐ๐ณ๐ฆ๐ญ๐ญ๐ข ๐ท๐ถ๐ญ๐จ๐ข๐ณ๐ช๐ด
Supervisor: Valerie Ward
Department: Biology
Location/Method: Remote via MS TEAMS
Thursday, January 9, 2025 at 8:30:00 AM
MSc Candidate: Kian DREW
Title: Reconstructing Late Holocene Environmental Change in the Pevensey Levels: Stratigraphic and Paleoenvironmental Insights from Horse Eye and North Eye, UK
Supervisor: Martin Ross and John Johnston
Department: Earth and Environmental Sciences
Location/Method: EIT 2044 and Remote via MS TEAMS
Monday, January 16, 2025 at 2:00:00 PM
MSc Candidate: Sarah KOWALCZYK
Title: Determination of the accumulation of chiral pharmaceuticals (venlafaxine and ๐-desmethylvenlafaxine) in rainbow darters (๐๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ๐ฐ๐ด๐ต๐ฐ๐ฎ๐ข ๐ค๐ข๐ฆ๐ณ๐ถ๐ญ๐ฆ๐ถ๐ฎ)
Supervisor: Mark Servos
Department: Biology
Location/Method: B1 266
Friday, January 17, 2025 at 11:00:00 AM
MSc Candidate: Neo DIZDAR
Title: Investigating Abundances in Galaxy Clusters and Gas Motions in M87 using XRISM
Supervisor: Brian McNamara
Department: Physics and Astronomy
Location/Method: PHY 308 with Remote Audience via TEAMS
Monday, January 20, 2025 at 1:00:00 PM
MSc Candidate: Huagang TAN
Title: โAnnoToolsโ: Extending AnnoTree and AnnoView for Database-Wide Genome Annotation, Visualization, and Comparison
Supervisor: Andrew Doxey
Department: Biology
Location/Method: Remote via MS TEAMS
Friday, January 24, 2025 at 10:00:00 AM
MSc Candidate: Vanessa KOO
Title: Health Care Costs Associated with Minor Ailments and Cost Minimization Analysis of Pharmacists Prescribing for Minor Ailments in Ontario, Canada
Supervisor: William WL Wong
Department: School of Pharmacy
Location/Method: Remote via MS TEAMS
Friday, March 7, 2025 at 2:00:00 PM
MSc Candidate: Amanda RATTO
Title: Development of Novel Human Aggrecanse-2 Dual-Binding Bis-Squaramide Inhibitors
Supervisor: John Honek
Department: Chemistry
Location/Method: C2 361
Friday, March 28, 2025 at 11:00:00 AM
MSc Candidate: Yasmeen ALSHEHABI
Title: Restoring p62 Palmitoylation as a Viable Therapeutic Approach for Mitigating the Effects of Huntington Disease
Supervisor: Dale Martin
Department: Biology
Location/Method: STC 2002
Thursday, April 3, 2025 at 2:30:00 PM
MSc Candidate: Shaeer MOEED
Title: Path integral and qubit encoding techniques for quantum simulations of discrete planar rotor lattices
Supervisor: Pierre-Nicholas Roy
Department: Chemistry
Location/Method: C2 361
Thursday, April 10, 2025 at 10:00:00 AM
MSc Candidate: Bharat KUCHHAL
Title: Towards Optical Simulation of Topological Phenomena with Ring Resonators
Supervisor: Kevin Resch and Chris Wilson
Department: Physics and Astronomy
Location/Method: Remote via MS TEAMS
Monday, April 14, 2025 at 11:00:00 AM
MSc Candidate: Severyn BALANIUK
Title: A Machine Learning Model for Trapped-ion State Classification
Supervisor: Roger Melko
Department: Physics and Astronomy
Location/Method: QNC 2101
Wednesday, April 16, 2025 at 2:00:00 PM
MSc Candidate: Merrik KOBARFARD
Title: Development and Optimization of Analytical methods for Sulfolane and BTEX Quantification in Environmental samples
Supervisor: Tadeusz Gorecki
Department: Chemistry
Location/Method: C2 361 and Remote via MS TEAMS